A chemical engineer is evaluating a new lightweight alloy for use in automotive heat…
PHYSICS · Multi-part · CBSE · Physics · Thermal Properties of Matter · Thermal Properties of Matter
Problem
A chemical engineer is evaluating a new lightweight alloy for use in automotive heat exchangers. The engineer places a 60.0 g sample of the alloy at 15.0 °C into a steel calorimeter (heat capacity 45.0 J °C⁻¹) that contains 250.0 g of ethylene glycol at 80.0 °C. After the system reaches equilibrium, the final temperature is 74.2 °C. The specific heat capacity of ethylene glycol is 2.42 J g⁻¹ °C⁻¹.
(a) Calculate the specific heat capacity (J g⁻¹ °C⁻¹) of the alloy.
(b) Ethylene glycol is chosen instead of water because of its lower volatility at high temperatures. Identify one additional property of ethylene glycol that makes it suitable for this experiment and briefly explain your reasoning.